Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Lakewood's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Lakewood?
Your $100,000 in Lakewood has the same purchasing power as $84,289 in the average US city. You'd need $15,711 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Lakewood's cost index of 119, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Lakewood, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. A higher-income labor market than the national norm and clean air, by the numbers lead, plus 1 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
The typical household in Lakewood pulls in $82,786 — comfortably above the US median. Combined with the cost of living here, the income-to-expense ratio works out better than a quick look at either number in isolation would suggest.
Average AQI in Lakewood comes in around 35, well into the "good" band. Clean air isn't a thing you appreciate until you've lived somewhere it wasn't — and this is the side of that line you want to be on.
Lakewood has a college-educated share of about 44% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Lakewood's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Lakewood does winter the real way. Averages around 19°F keep snow on the ground for weeks at a time, and lakes and rivers tend to freeze hard enough to walk on.
Properly cold. Lakewood's winter sits around 19°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Lakewood's summer averages around 87°F, the kind of heat where you remember to leave the house before noon for outdoor things and accept that the back of your shirt will be wet by lunchtime.
Zone 7, give or take a half-zone. Lakewood's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 7 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Roughly 5,673 feet (1,729 m) — high enough to matter physiologically. Plan on a week or two of feeling the altitude before your body recalibrates, drink more water than you think you need, and respect the sun.
Lakewood's reported crime rate runs high: about 6,215 per 100,000 residents, materially above the national average. Specific neighborhoods vary widely, but the city-wide aggregate is on the rougher end of the US distribution.
More expensive than average — by enough to plan around. Lakewood's composite index is 119 versus 100 for the US, with rent and home prices driving most of the gap. Salaries in higher-paying industries usually move together, but the math still tightens for everyone else.
Lakewood scores 43 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 14 out of 100. Some neighborhoods buck the citywide average; the dense inner cores are usually noticeably more walkable than the city number suggests.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $83,048 to live in Lakewood the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Lakewood runs about $1,665/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.